It’s amazing the difference eight years, a bike and a good group of friends can do for you.
It’s done a lot for the health of Dr. Robert Clemens of Sioux Center who ended up losing 50 pounds because of bicycling.
The 53-year-old family physician who’s been a doctor at Sioux Center Health for 20 years found himself in need of a lifestyle change he often prescribes to patients.
It’s easy to get into a sedentary lifestyle in medicine, Clemens said, and that was the start of his decline in fitness and health. The stress and lack of sleep that come with the work didn’t do him any favors, either.
During his high school years, Clemens had been active enough, participating in different sports. He describes himself as an average athlete interested more in the social aspect of sports than the physical fitness part of it.“After college, I took a 20-year hiatus from being athletic,” Clemens said.
Through the years, he’d occasionally start to do more physical activity, making resolutions, going to the gym or buying some equipment, but none of it lasted very long.
“I would succeed for months, but none of it connected into years or real lifestyle changes,” Clemens said. “It’s a near universal experience.”
But he hurt his right knee while pheasant hunting around 2010. He said it was a minor knee injury, but the pain bothered him.
What’s more, he was about 50 pounds overweight by then.